I think the only way you might be able to do this is see if your provider has a setting to remove from the server when downloaded. However, this would most likely also operate when the phone picks them up too, and you'd therefore miss them on Outlook.

I left it until today Monday to call my ISP and they had 'never' heard of this action.

For 15 years I used Outlook Express with Windows XP and it worked thus: invariably an email came to my mobile before the computer - so out walking I might receive an email on the mobile with the aim to digest it properly when home on the computer. Back home, the computer booted up and the email received. As soon as the email loaded on the computer it disappeared from the mobile. Obviously the way I (or a friend?) had set it up and it worked perfectly all those years.

My hard disk died last week, so new HD installed and had to accept Windows 7, instead of my beloved XP. Couldn't get 'old' Outlook Express to run on Win7; so now using MS Outlook instead and cannot recreate the way I had emails working before - which (for me) was brilliant!

No-one else seems to understand the way I had emails set up before and this baffles me. Do people pile up 100s of emails on their mobiles these days? Most of my emails are business orientated and important to me, so I can afford to dump them from the mobile (my preference), but definitely 'not' from my system.

For me it's like losing Concorde - a step backwards. Sorry to be so long-winded.

Baffles me too, tbh. I use full Outlook and there's a setting to delete emails from the server when they're deleted in Outlook, but it doesn't work with all services (does with Yahoo, not with Gmail). An email client can only look at the server so, if the message is there the client (the computer or the phone) will see it. It sounds as though your original Outlook setup somehow deleted messages when downloaded. I've never heard of an option not to display messages that have been read elsewhere (this would have to be on the phone) and anyway, since the phone is unchanged, that should still be working if it was in fact set up.

I use Gmail (with the app on Android devices) because it's much simpler to set up and view across multiple devices and any message I haven't deleted is available everywhere.

I found a manual way to solve my problem - which I am going to have to live with.

Currently, if I delete an email from the mobile (as mentioned previously), it also deletes the same email on my system. So as a workaround: -

1. I first copy the email on the system into a sub-folder

2. I 'then' delete the email on the mobile

3. The email remains intact in the sub-folder on the system

I do agree that viewing emails across multiple devices is the way to go and being available everywhere is convenient; but working from home the bottom line for me is the work-station for all my design work - where 'eventually' I do not need copies of emails on all the other devices - where it just becomes clutter.

Thanks again Hrym!

NB. On another matter, I had an email to say that Hughthomas had also commented on this thread, but his post has not appeared here..?

Glad you've found a workround. I use subfolders a lot so that my inbox only has current stuff in it. Is there a setting on the phone not to delete from the server when you delete on the device? I haven't used a Samsung email client for a long time and the main thing that prompted me to give up was that, if I deleted a message and then changed my mind, there was no way to get it out of the deleted folder (and stop it being deleted from the server into the bargain).

I did once experiment with IMAP, where folders are mirrored across devices, but didn't get on with it at all and abandoned it.

Final thought: have you considered a different email client on the PC? I've never used Thunderbird, but I've heard good reports of it.

@Samdy wrote:In OE6 email setup I left unchecked: "leave a copy of message on server" - and guess what. All the emails suddenly deleted from my mobile - where I didn't want them anyway.

That's just plain weird, and the exact opposite of what I'd expect! The only thing I can think is happening is that the phone has a setting for "don't display messages that have already been read, but are still on the server", which I've never seen anywhere.

Clearly the setup you have works for you, which is great, but why, and whether you'd ever be able to replicate it with a different combination of software/hardware, I really don't know.

Leave a copy of message on server (I left this unchecked, with the result as described earlier)

But if I check this box I get two further options, here: -

1. Remove from server in "x number" days, or...

2. Remove from server when deleted from Deleted Items

You may have noticed that I have a bee in my bonnet about new technology not always matching, or advancing on, what went before... like Concorde, like XP, like OE6 - all ahead of their time when introduced. For example I haven't yet found all these 'convenient' Outlook Express options in 'newer' Outlook? Vintage OE6 is a beaut!

As far as I know, OE6 works all the way from Windows 2000 to Windows 10, albeit in some later editions: 7, 8,10 etc. some tweaking is required. I was just lucky I still had it buried in my system.

Full Outlook certainly has a setting for "delete from server when removed from deleted items" but, as I said, this doesn't work with all services. I've only used Outlook Express briefly, so have little experience of it. I didn't think it was still available and had been replaced by Windows Live Mail.

Software features come and go and, yes, it's very frustrating when your favourite disapears. I suspect this has to do with how much they're used and how easily they can be made to work with a new operating system.